Elon Musk has had his fair share of critics and commentators, and on Sunday night, the Tesla founder was the subject of one of the most popular shows on streaming today.
"Last Week Tonight," a satirical news program on Max hosted by John Oliver, aired its final episode of 2023 by doing a story on Musk. Oliver recognized at the top of the show that Musk had a "pretty big twelve months," which led to the show's decision to do over 30 minutes on the billionaire.
The show is known for its intricate deep dives that look into the truth behind an array of topics, seen by its recent episodes that go from uncovering the poor practices of the consulting firm McKinsey to exposing the hidden atrocities in the supply chain of chocolate. Despite its direct attacks at powerful companies and industries, "Last Week Tonight" has been around for a decade and is a highly-awarded program with over 25 Emmys.
The show's 2023 finale on Musk may be its most daring, considering the power that the billionaire wields — but Musk's power is exactly what Oliver wanted to highlight in his story.
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Oliver opened by taking a few joking jabs at Musk, but his intro ends with a disclaimer that he expected his piece to not be well-received by both Musk supporters and critics. The point, however, is that Musk and his companies are so consequential that the world may not be able to be indifferent to him anymore.
"There are also people who would understandably rather just ignore him, but as you will see, we might have past the point where that is an option for any of us," Oliver said.
The former "The Daily Show" correspondent proceeded to talk about Musk's different successes and failures.
Oliver pointed out some of Musk's embarrassing moments, like the Cybertruck launch where a baseball drilled a hole in the car's window and the numerous failed SpaceX launches. But he also pointed out that SpaceX has been "genuinely impressive" and that Tesla is a "big success."
But Oliver said that the question isn't whether Musk and his companies are doing good to humanity — because, he believes, that is clear. But he points out that "there are costs" to Musk's successes that he is often not held accountable for.
"Even if you think that Elon is a net positive, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about the harm the he's doing along the way," Oliver said.
Oliver drilled on several issues with Musk and his companies. These include abusive treatment of employees where Oliver showed an interview from a former SpaceX employee, reports of numerous deaths due to Tesla's self-driving feature that Musk has excused through arguments about how future humans will benefit — and Musk's addiction to X (formerly Twitter) that led him to purchase the platform and subsequently opened the door to more widespread hate speech.
Musk has denied that there is more hate speech on X — particularly speech from white nationalists — but Oliver goes as far as showing a video of two white nationalists who themselves talked about how X has made white nationalist rhetoric more "mainstream."
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Outside of championing more alt-right political ideologies, Oliver also pointed out how Musk's power gives him a stranglehold over some of the most powerful entities in the world, including the U.S. government and Russia's war in Ukraine.
Musk's Starlink has been a massive help for Ukraine in its battle with Russia, but Musk has shown signs that his support may not be fully with Ukraine.
"Elon says that he is still pro-Ukraine ... but U.S. officials are now in the awkward position of having to defer to him on policy," Oliver said.
And while it's clear that Musk has a lot of power over the world, Oliver shows that even people around Musk are worried about what he could do with that influence. Oliver brought up a clip of Musk's biographer, Walter Isaacson, who said that Musk "loves drama" and thinks that it might he might be "a little bit dangerous" due to that desire.
"Whether we like it or not — and the answer is absolutely not — a huge number of very important things going forward are going to depend on how Elon is feeling, which is a terrifying thing to say about anyone, but especially this guy," Oliver said.
Oliver admitted that he was actually "more impressed" by Musk's achievements after doing this story, but "more worried that he's the one who's been doing it."
He pointed out that Musk's undeniable power shines through an illusion that he's going against the grain, even if his archetype has been seen all throughout the history of humanity — and rarely in a net positive way.
"He cultivates an image that he's simply too visionary, too original to play by other people's rules, and he waves away the damage that he does at the cost of innovation and saving humanity," Oliver said. "But the truth is: that way of thinking isn't remotely original. We've seen it so many times before. The least surprising this on earth is middle-aged billionaire CEO, with self-serving libertarian views, increasingly racist politics, and a Messiah complex."
"It is long past time that he face the kind of accountability that comes with that — and not just from the echo chamber that he bought himself online — but from everyone whose lives are very much affected by him," Oliver added.
Musk had yet to respond to the piece of "Last Week Tonight" as of this story's publishing.
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